COMPETITIVE INTEGRITY IN ESPORTS: THE CAMMY CASE (Call of Duty League)

Background to the Case

In the opening weekend of the 2023 Call of Duty League Season match between Optic Gaming and Minnesota Rokkr, there was an issue on the integrity of competitive play in the league.

Cammy, a player from the Minnesota Rokkr, accidentally selected a GA’d SAE killstreak(An action that all the players have agreed not to use, prior to the start of the league.) and unfortunately, this streak has a bug attached to it, which made Cammy’s in-game character to freeze for some seconds and eventually, Optic Gaming won the map.

"Obviously I know to switch or shoot, you have to hold down your button key to change your streak to precision. I am holding it down and nothing is happening and then I press it again and it pulls out the S.A.E" - Cammy in a post match interview.

The Minnesota Rokkr brought this mistake to the notice of the league and after deliberating for an hour, the league asked that the map round be replayed, but Optic Gaming decided to forfeit the game as a whole, which then resulted in a win for Minnesota Rokkr.

Analysis

On Decision by the League

To understand the decision taken by the league, readers first need to understand what it means for an act or in-game skin to be GA’d.

The term GA is short form for Gentleman’s Agreement, and it is basically a form of agreement reached by the professional players in the Call of Duty League, to not use certain weapons, in-game skins or perform certain actions in-game.

The interesting thing about this GA is that this agreement is reached without enforcement by the league. The enforcement comes from the moral standing of the players, as they view the GA’d act/items to be against competitive fairplay.

In the current case, it so happened that a killstreak named the S.A.E was GA’d by the players before the commencement of the league. In addition to it being GA’d, it had a bug that came with it, which was not fixed as at the time that this game was played.

The issues before the league were as follows:

• ?Since this act was not banned by the league ruleset, what would be the basis for penalising Cammy and the Rokkr team for the usage of the GA’d Killstreak?.?
• Since the disparity between the teams was caused by a game glitch, what will be the adequate remedy to restore parity?

In arriving at a decision, it seems that the league overlooked the exercise of the GA’d killstreak, but in a bid to remedy the disparity caused by the glitch in the game itself, decided that the round be replayed. The decision caused a public debate on social media, but before going into this, there is a need to evaluate the validity of this decision.

Validity of Decision based on Past Experiences in the Call of Duty League

Use of GA’d item: In February 2022, “Shotzzy”, a call of duty player for Optic Gaming used a GA’d F8 stabilizer for his weapon and he was not penalised, since it was just a GA’d function. Even though he apologized for accidentally using it, Optic Gaming received some backlash for it. A famous Youtuber called ZooMaa, gave his opinion by asking for the league to directly prohibit such attachment in the first place, by including the GA list in the ruleset.

Glitch in System: In last year’s Major IV round match between the LA thieves and the New York Subliners, there was a major pistol glitch that affected the weapon of a player called “Envoy” from the Subliners.

In a subsequent livestream by his co-player named Octane, it was confirmed that the team never asked for a replay because they felt it was all part of the game. Judging from this, it will be safe to assume that in the CDL, the rule of replaying a round in case of glitch is only triggered when the team that suffered such glitch, complains.

Validity of Decision Based on Industry Best Practices

There are a plethora of cases around bug issues in esports that have been the subject of debate on social media. The most recent one was the decision by Riot Games in the playoff match between X-Set and FunPlus Phoenix in the 2022 Valorant Champions Tour.??

In this game, the match was greatly impacted by a bug that caused the Killjoy Turret to fire in the wrong direction. Even though neither team raised this issue, Riot in a competitive ruling, ruled for a round replay.

This caused several debates on social media, with many people saying that the bug is widely known in-game and should ordinarily have been expected by X-Set.

My Opinion/Conclusion

Firstly, there is a philosophical angle to this case. There happens to be a clash between the formalist and conventionalist theories of sports, in assessing the decision taken and the backlash that came with it.

The S.A.E killstreak, which is a GA’d action, does not have the backing of the rules of the league and from a formalist standpoint, Cammy using this killstreak attracts no penalty.??

On the flip side, all the pro-players in the CDL, have agreed to have the gentleman agreement to exclude this killstreak amongst other actions/items and based on the conventionalist standpoint, failure to adhere to this, results in blame and rebuke.? This is why this decision received a lot of backlash from the community as seen below.

Secondly, one thing that was consistent in all of the remarks from the general public, was for the league to reach a point where these GA’d actions/items are incorporated into the league’s rule-set and the exercise of a GA’d act/item be it accidental or not, will be penalised. This also aligns with the general criticism of the conventionalist theory of sports.

Thirdly, judging from the Envoy's case, it seems that the call to replay a round, when a bug glitch affects game-play, only gets triggered in case of a challenge. In a bid to maintain consistency in calls, my opinion is for the CDL to adopt the approach of Riot Games by rectifying such disparity caused by game glitches, whether a challenge has been made or not. Riot's decision was done in compliance of rule 9.4.2 of the Valorant Champions Tour 2022 Rulebook.

Fourthly, since bugs are almost going to be an issue in competitive esports, it will be efficient for rule-makers to maintain consistency in their decision-making by categorisation. From the above, it is safe to assume that when deciding the appropriate solution to remedy a glitch bug situation, the following should be considered:

• The impact of the bug to the final outcome of the match.
• If teams should have reasonably accounted for such bugs, given its widespread nature.